London Festival of Puppetry
Suspense, the London Festival of Puppetry, takes place at the Little Angel Theatre and other venues throughout the capital until 8 November.
This is the first festival of its kind ever and will include performances, lectures, masterclasses and training sessions. The brainchild of the Little Angel’s Peter Glanville, the festival is designed to show the public what adult puppetry is all about, demonstrating that it’s an artform in its own right, far more sophisticated than the Punch and Judy shows of popular puppeting cliché. In fact the organisers claim that puppetry is on the way back, using the success of shows such as the National Theatre’s powerful War Horse – which relied on the skilful manipulation of the incredibly life-like puppet horses for its impact – to back up their argument.
The shows on offer are incredibly varied with sources of inspiration ranging from Greek myths to the Rolling Stones. Among them are Puppetcraft’s Perseus and the Gorgon’s Head, the Dutch Objekentheatre’s To Have or Not to Have, described as ‘a rusty fairytale with elements of the spaghetti western’ and Papierthéâtre’s take on Romeo and Juliet. There’s even a meditation on aging and the father-daughter relationships with Full Beam Visuals’ My Baby Just Cares For Me. It all promises to be quite an eye-opener!
www.suspensefestival.com
